Allow yourself for the moment the luxury of doing what both Cal Poly Pomona men’s basketball coach Greg Kamansky and California Baptist University’s Rick Croy refuse to do here. Allow yourself to look ahead to what area basketball fans would salivate about come March.

Allow yourself to daydream about a Cal Poly-Cal Baptist Western Regional final. The longtime Division II power from San Bernardino County against the Riverside County arrivistes who are sticking around just long enough to wreak havoc on their Division II counterparts before moving to Division I next year.

Both Cal Poly, the regular-season CCAA champions, and Cal Baptist, which finished second to Dixie State in the PacWest, have unfinished business this week — playing host to their respective conference tournaments. The CCAA began Tuesday at Kellogg Gym, with Cal Poly playing No. 8 Cal State Dominguez Hills. The PacWest starts Thursday and Cal Baptist gets a bye into Friday’s semifinals.

“We scrimmaged Cal Baptist before the season started and they blasted us,” Kamansky said. “It was our first scrimmage of the year and we were in bewilderment with their unbelievable arena and they blasted us pretty well. I stopped counting after it was 30. But we feel we’re better now.”

On the momentum of a 21-5 season, the Broncos are better now. So, however, are the 24-4 Lancers who ended the regular season on a 10-game winning streak. Those pesky details aside, it may be a daydream now, but there are legitimate reasons why a Cal Poly-Cal Baptist West Regional clash would not only be a basketball feast for the senses, but a hoops chess match that would offer a smorgasbord of intriguing possibilities and scenarios. Especially with an Elite Eight berth on the line.

To wit:

–Jordan v. Jordan, as in Cal Baptist point guard Jordan Heading against his Cal Poly counterpart, Jordan Ogundiran. Their scoring averages are in the neighborhood of each other: 14.6 for Ogundiran, which is sixth in the CCAA, 13.5 for Heading (15th) and their assists are virtually identical: 4.2 for Ogundiran, 4.5 for Heading. But despite the high basketball IQ both of them have, the two play contrasting styles that make this a fascinating duel. Ogundiran is far more flashy and far more likely to break down a defense or go off for a monster night point-wise. But Heading is bigger, more experienced and more physical.

— Kalidou Diouf vs. Everybody. One reason this is a chess match is that Kamansky has the Broncos kicking along with a guard-based team — an unfamiliar scenario for a coach who has made a very good living with an assembly line of 6-8 to 6-10 big men. He has 6-2 Chris Sullivan, a Charles Barkley clone, playing center, along with 6-7 Justin Young. Those two would have their hands, feet and other body parts full dealing with Cal Baptist’s 6-8 Diouf, who at times is simply unplayable. Diouf was third in the PacWest in scoring (18.6), third in rebounds (8.7) and led in field-goal percentage by nearly 10 percent over his closest pursuer (66.2 percent). When he is consistently getting his shot off in the paint, Diouf is unstoppable. This means that Kamansky’s deep bench; he goes 11 players deep, would come in very handy.

— Defense vs. Defense. It should surprise nobody that Cal Poly is the No. 1 defensive team in the CCAA, holding teams to 38.1 percent shooting and 30.4 from behind the arc. The Broncos have the best scoring margin in the conference despite being next-to-last in scoring offense. The motion defense Kamansky and his staff devised in 2005 that is so complex it takes Cal Poly players a year to fully grasp becomes a vise on opposing teams once they do grasp it.

“We did a clinic on it at the Final Four a few years ago and coaches were bewildered,” Kamansky said. “But our guys are smart, high-IQ players; that’s how we recruit, and this plays to their strengths. It works. It definitely works.”

This sends Croy to his chessboard, from where he counters with the leading offensive team in the PacWest (averaging 83 points a game) and the second-best defense (67.8), meaning the Lancers are winning games by an average of 15 points. They are holding teams to 41.7 percent shooting and a miserly 29.9 percent from beyond the arc.

“We have defended the 3 very well in conference play and that has been big for us,” Croy said. “We have great leadership on our team and I think that is demonstrated on the defensive end of the floor with our communication and effort.”

Daydreams aside, these two have played each other for keeps. Cal Baptist beat the Broncos by four last year and by five the year before. Given the Lancers’ move to Division I next year, this would be the last time these hoop dreams have an answer.

“We have great respect for their program and the consistency with which they give themselves a chance come March,” Croy said.

That said, could the rest of us have a chance to see this come March?

The mad dash that caused the mad dash

They haven’t made this easy on themselves all year, so why should the final week of the regular season be any different for UC Riverside’s men’s basketball team?

When last we left the Highlanders, they were on the verge of knocking off UC Davis — the same UC Davis that is a half-game behind UC Irvine for the Big West regular season lead with a game in hand. Menno Dijkstra, UCR’s 7-foot center, had just dropped jaws all over Davis’ arena by dropping in his second 3-pointer of the night to give the Highlanders a 63-61 lead with 5.7 seconds remaining.

Alas, UCR left too much time on the clock and too much space for T.J. Shorts II, who drove three-fourths of the court and scooped in an off-balance, left-handed layup with one second remaining to give the Aggies a 64-63 victory.

Putting aside the fact this spoiled Chance Murray’s 24-point, six-rebound night — one point off his career high and the second time in the last three games he’s cracked the 20-point mark — Shorts’ mad dash means for UCR to reach the Big West Tournament, the Highlanders either have to win one of their two remaining games — home Thursday against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo or at Long Beach State Saturday — or Cal State Northridge has to lose to visiting Cal State Fullerton on Wednesday.

Given the fact Cal Poly (4-10) is right above UCR (3-11) in the Big West standings, given the fact the Highlanders have won three of their last four at home and given the fact they’re 3-12 on the road, it doesn’t take the reasoning skills of a UCR statistics professor to figure out what path to the tournament would offer lesser resistance.

Zalesky takes down his own honor
Lennie Zalesky has tirelessly worked to put his Cal Baptist University wrestlers on any map the coach could find. He has pushed, cajoled, motivated and extracted enough pounds of flesh and talent to make the Lancers one of the elite Division II wrestling programs in the nation.
At the same time, he has donated his time and his wrestlers’ time grappling with more than his opponents. And all of this combined to make Zalesky the Division II West Region Coach of the Year, as selected by his peers in the National Wrestling Coaches Association.

According to the NWCA, the award is “presented to the coach that has demonstrated outstanding effort throughout the season in developing and elevating their program on campus and in the community.”

Behind standouts such as Nolan Kistler, Daxton Gordon, Andrew Schulte and Nick Fiegener, CBU won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title for the second time in three years and is headed to the NCAA Division II finals in Cedar Rapids, Iowa next weekend. But Zalesky has pinned the second half of those guidelines in textbook form by elevating his program’s community image in numerous ways.

Those ways include Operation Christmas Child, where Zalesky filled shoeboxes with gifts for underprivileged children, volunteering with the local police department, sending his wrestlers into the community to read to children as part of Read Across America and joining his team in volunteering to work the concession stand for CBU basketball games.

Zalesky is now eligible for the NWCA National Coach of the Year award, which will be presented Thursday, March 8, before the Division II national championships.

The usual suspects

As an early gift to Zalesky, Cal Baptist captured its second consecutive NCAA Division II Super Region IV wrestling title last week in the dusty town of Las Vegas, N.M., and not surprisingly – the victory was keyed by the familiar.

Individual titles from Kistler (174 pounds), Gordon (149) and Schulte (141) led the fourth-ranked Lancers to a narrow 3.5-point victory (114.5-111) over the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

Kistler, a senior from King High and the second-ranked 174-pound wrestler in Division II, won his 16th consecutive bout when he dispatched Western State Colorado’s Brandon Supernaw, 4-1, who scored his only point on an escape.

“Winning at the individual and team levels just means we have something special on this team. It legitimizes all the hard work and extra hours we’ve committed to the sport,” Kistler said.

Gordon, ranked No. 5 at 149, had a tougher time against the wrestler right above him in the NCAA rankings, Efe Osaghae of Fort Hays State, who tied the match at 4-4 early in the third period with a takedown. But Gordon pulled off an escape with 38 seconds left to secure the 5-4 victory.

Schulte was never seriously threatened in his title bout with Brock Thumm of Chadron State, building a 6-4 lead entering the final period, then adding a takedown of Thumm for an 8-4 victory.

Fiegener narrowly missed joining his cohorts atop the podium. He lost a 3-1 decision in sudden death to Colorado State-Pueblo’s JaVoughn Perkins, when Perkins took him down in overtime to win their 184-pound final.

Next up is the NCAA Division II finals in Cedar Rapids, Iowa March 9-10.

Fourth squared

Both the University of Redlands men’s (502 points) and women’s (491) swimming and diving teams placed fourth at the four-day SCIAC Championships in Commerce last week. But while several Bulldogs etched entries into the school’s top-10 career list, the undisputed Redlands performance came from junior butterflier Wendy McAleer.

McAleer swam to an All-SCIAC time of 2:07.74 in the 200-meter butterfly, pacing a Redlands contingent that finished third, fourth with August Key and sixth with Karina Lanning. McAleer’s time is the fourth-fastest in school history and Key’s 2:08.97 is fifth.

On the men’s side, Redlands won three of the B-Division finals, with Carson Brett winning the 100 free in 46.51 seconds, Brian Wright taking the 200 breast in 2:08.04 and Corey Winter capturing the 200 fly in 1:54.34. Wright’s time is the fourth-fastest in school history.

Riverside meets beach

It may be the best-kept sports secret in area collegiate sports, but Riverside City College has a beach volleyball team. And a beach volleyball team that got off to a solid start to the 2018 season with a split against powerhouse Orange Coast College and Santa Ana College.

The Tigers were swept in five sets by OCC, but pulled off a 4-1 victory over Santa Ana behind the top two tandems of Natalie Escher of Redlands and Brittney Diffine of Riverside, who swept their games 21-9 and 21-7, and Marcella Rodriguez of Belize and Julia Balancier of Moreno Valley, who captured their games 21-13 and 21-12.

Lauren Dunmore of Northridge and Delany Beck of Riverside, RCC’s No. 4 team, won their match in three games, as did the No. 5 team Taylor Gardner of Colton and Telanni Childs of Upland.

All but Rodriguez are freshmen.

Keep an eye on
· CBU’s Emeline Delanis, who set a school record in the 3,000 meters at the Lancers’ first track and field competition of the season, the Rossi Relays at Claremont McKenna. Delanis covered the distance in a personal-best 9:47.80. She led a strong CBU contingent in the event as the Lancers finished 1-2-3 and put six runners in the top-10.

– RCC’s Brae Ivey, who led RCC with 18 points before fouling out in the Tigers’ season-ending 76-75 triple-overtime, playoff loss to Cerritos College. Ivey was named to the All-Conference first team, while teammates Jordan Robinson and Andre Wilson were second-team selections. Wilson played 55 minutes against Cerritos, finishing with 17 points that included a 3-pointer in the second overtime that sent the game to a third extra period.

· Redlands’ Reyna Ta’amu and David Menary, who comprised the Bulldogs’ All-SCIAC basketball contingent. Ta’amu, a senior from Lakewood, earned her third all-conference berth and second First Team berth. She finished third in conference scoring at 15.4 points a game on 54.7 percent shooting – second among SCIAC players – and averaged nearly eight rebounds a game. She became the ninth Redlands player to join the 1,000-point club earlier this season. Menary, a sophomore from Grass Valley, grabbed his first all-conference spot on the All-SCIAC second team. He averaged 16.5 points on 54.1 percent shooting and 7.5 rebounds.

– Redlands softball catcher Nova Siegel, who became the first player in Coach Liz Slupinski’s two-year stint at Redlands to earn SCIAC Softball Player of the Week accolades. For the week, Siegel went 6-for-7 (an .867 average) with three RBI and two runs. Tennis player Sarah Ikioka continued the Bulldogs’ weekly haul of honors by being named the SCIAC Tennis Player of the Week. Ikioka earned both points in a 7-2 loss to Brandeis University: one in singles and one in doubles with Elizabeth Johnson.

· CBU’s Ciara Stapp, who earned PacWest Conference Pitcher of the Week for one-hitting Azusa Pacific in the opener of the Lancers’ softball doubleheader with their rival. Given the fact CBU got her only one run in the 1-0 victory, it was a good time for Stapp to throw a one-hitter. The Lancers, meanwhile, found their bats in the second game, blasting APU, 9-1. For the season, Stapp is 3-2 with a 1.62 ERA. Opponents are hitting .170 against her.

· Redlands golfer Caroline Ordian, who shot 77-77—154 to place second individually at the first SCIAC Tournament at Arrowhead Country Club in San Bernardino.

· UCR center Dijkstra, who is 6 of 11 (54.5 percent) from beyond the 3-point arc over his last four games. It should be noted here that Dijkstra is 7-feet tall and often surprises his opponents by casually stepping behind the arc and shooting. Against UC Davis last Saturday, Dijkstra hit 2 of 3 3-pointers.

– RCC’s Aeriel Carlson, who continued her power surge last week by blasting her state-leading ninth home run of the season. Four innings later, Carlson scored the winning run via aggressive baserunning in the Tigers’ 2-1 victory over East Los Angeles College.

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